1. Technical Field
The present disclosure generally relates to data storage systems and in particular to a method of operating a redundant array of independent drives (RAID) storage system having a hot spare storage device.
2. Description of the Related Art
As the value and use of information continue to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes, thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
An information handling system can be configured in several different configurations. The information handling system can range from a single, stand-alone computer system to a distributed, multi-device computer system, to a networked computer system with remote or cloud storage systems. Both local computer storage systems and remote or cloud storage systems can include redundant arrays of independent drives (RAID) that use hard disk drives or solid state storage drives. The drives can be configured to have different redundancy levels depending upon the amount of redundancy required.
A RAID 1 system has data disks for storing data and an equal number of additional “mirror” disks for storing copies of the information written to the data disks, achieving replication of data between disks. RAID 10 uses a combination of RAID 0 and RAID 1 levels. RAID 10 provides data striping in mirrored drives. Unfortunately, in RAID systems, if two or more drives fail in a group of mirrored drives, data can be lost.